Meg Lowman: Messages in the Gates Foundation report

Published: Monday, March 11, 2013 at 1:00 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, March 8, 2013 at 5:34 p.m.

"You can achieve amazing progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal."

-- Bill Gates

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation just released its annual letter, providing an update on its progress toward creating a better world in which "every person deserves the chance to live a healthy, productive life."

The foundation's mission is daunting, with a global report card that seeks to improve health, education, agriculture, sanitation and the general state of the human condition. The goals of the Gates Foundation are based in part on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed upon by 189 nations in the year 2000 as part of a United Nations pledge to achieve them by 2015. That deadline is fast approaching, and the eight missions are:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

2. Achieve universal primary education.

3. Promote gender equality and empower women.

4. Reduce child mortality.

5. Improve maternal health.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability.

8. Develop a global partnership for development.

These are lofty missions, and admittedly the world will not achieve them in the next two years. Each ambition, however, has specific metrics that allow accurate tracking and a sense of achievement. For example, a target to reduce extreme global poverty by half was achieved ahead of time, as was the goal to halve the number of people without access to clean drinking water.

The real take-home messages for the 2013 annual report are twofold.

One is the charismatic element of what one foundation (albeit the world's largest) attempts to accomplish. Gates talks passionately about setting goals and establishing clear metrics to achieve them. He speaks with pride about the progress his foundation has achieved in reducing the number of children who die before the age of 5, from 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011. He writes about his visit last March to Ethiopia, where not only is health care technology a daunting challenge but the logistics of distributing medical supplies are overwhelming in a vast rural landscape. Nonetheless, he describes how he saw firsthand the basic medical services now supplied to large expanses of farming communities where none had existed before.

A second underlying take-home message in the report is the notion that the success of any scientific breakthrough is critically dependent on whether it can be distributed and accepted by local people, be it vaccines, a water purification device or a new breed of rice.

At its inception, the Gates Foundation identified technological innovation as its comparative advantage and the key to development success. While technology is still an enormous part of its work, there is now a clear emphasis on distribution and adoption of those same technologies.

In short, an inexpensive solar-powered cook stove represents a breakthrough when first developed in an American laboratory, but it is not really useful until it can be easily distributed to users and, most important, accepted by the local culture. Maybe the food does not taste good? Maybe the new device is not easily hauled by women from markets into remote villages?

Similarly, new vaccines face challenges of both the logistics of distribution and the development of trust by local people to subject their children to outside technologies.

Recognizing the critical role that delivery plays in actually improving development outcomes, the 2013 Gates Vaccine Innovation Award recipient is Margarida Matsinhe, who works for a non-governmental organization called VillageReach in Mozambique. Through dedicated efforts to distribute vaccines, 95 percent of children in her area receive basic immunization against lethal diseases, up from 69 percent.

In the parallel world of scientific research, I personally witness amazing discoveries and findings made by brilliant scientists. But unless their findings are communicated to the public, and hopefully applied to solutions, such achievements are relatively useless to advance the human race.

In the spirit of advancing communication, many science museums are tackling one of Bill Gates' major challenges -- how to disseminate scientific breakthroughs and turn innovation into solutions. Activities such as Science Cafes, citizen science programs and online courses disseminate science to a more diverse citizenry. And many universities are adding communication to their science course curricula, to ensure that the next generation of scientists will have the tools for effective messaging.

In our increasingly complex world, new discoveries and innovation are only as useful as their successful dissemination.

Meg Lowman, a longtime Sarasota-based scientist and educator, is director of the Nature Research Center, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and research professor at North Carolina State University. Email: meg.lowman@ncdenr.gov

<p>"You can achieve amazing progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal."</p><p>-- Bill Gates</p><p>The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation just released its annual letter, providing an update on its progress toward creating a better world in which "every person deserves the chance to live a healthy, productive life."</p><p>The foundation's mission is daunting, with a global report card that seeks to improve health, education, agriculture, sanitation and the general state of the human condition. The goals of the Gates Foundation are based in part on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed upon by 189 nations in the year 2000 as part of a United Nations pledge to achieve them by 2015. That deadline is fast approaching, and the eight missions are:</p><p>1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.</p><p>2. Achieve universal primary education.</p><p>3. Promote gender equality and empower women.</p><p>4. Reduce child mortality.</p><p>5. Improve maternal health.</p><p>6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.</p><p>7. Ensure environmental sustainability.</p><p>8. Develop a global partnership for development.</p><p>These are lofty missions, and admittedly the world will not achieve them in the next two years. Each ambition, however, has specific metrics that allow accurate tracking and a sense of achievement. For example, a target to reduce extreme global poverty by half was achieved ahead of time, as was the goal to halve the number of people without access to clean drinking water.</p><p>The real take-home messages for the 2013 annual report are twofold.</p><p>One is the charismatic element of what one foundation (albeit the world's largest) attempts to accomplish. Gates talks passionately about setting goals and establishing clear metrics to achieve them. He speaks with pride about the progress his foundation has achieved in reducing the number of children who die before the age of 5, from 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011. He writes about his visit last March to Ethiopia, where not only is health care technology a daunting challenge but the logistics of distributing medical supplies are overwhelming in a vast rural landscape. Nonetheless, he describes how he saw firsthand the basic medical services now supplied to large expanses of farming communities where none had existed before.</p><p>A second underlying take-home message in the report is the notion that the success of any scientific breakthrough is critically dependent on whether it can be distributed and accepted by local people, be it vaccines, a water purification device or a new breed of rice.</p><p>At its inception, the Gates Foundation identified technological innovation as its comparative advantage and the key to development success. While technology is still an enormous part of its work, there is now a clear emphasis on distribution and adoption of those same technologies.</p><p>In short, an inexpensive solar-powered cook stove represents a breakthrough when first developed in an American laboratory, but it is not really useful until it can be easily distributed to users and, most important, accepted by the local culture. Maybe the food does not taste good? Maybe the new device is not easily hauled by women from markets into remote villages?</p><p>Similarly, new vaccines face challenges of both the logistics of distribution and the development of trust by local people to subject their children to outside technologies.</p><p>Recognizing the critical role that delivery plays in actually improving development outcomes, the 2013 Gates Vaccine Innovation Award recipient is Margarida Matsinhe, who works for a non-governmental organization called VillageReach in Mozambique. Through dedicated efforts to distribute vaccines, 95 percent of children in her area receive basic immunization against lethal diseases, up from 69 percent.</p><p>In the parallel world of scientific research, I personally witness amazing discoveries and findings made by brilliant scientists. But unless their findings are communicated to the public, and hopefully applied to solutions, such achievements are relatively useless to advance the human race.</p><p>In the spirit of advancing communication, many science museums are tackling one of Bill Gates' major challenges -- how to disseminate scientific breakthroughs and turn innovation into solutions. Activities such as Science Cafes, citizen science programs and online courses disseminate science to a more diverse citizenry. And many universities are adding communication to their science course curricula, to ensure that the next generation of scientists will have the tools for effective messaging.</p><p>In our increasingly complex world, new discoveries and innovation are only as useful as their successful dissemination.</p><p>Meg Lowman, a longtime Sarasota-based scientist and educator, is director of the Nature Research Center, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and research professor at North Carolina State University. Email: meg.lowman@ncdenr.gov</p>